Sideways
by owlcroft
Summary: A brief look at "Love and Freindship"


Dedicated with gratitude to Cheri, who knows how to say what I mean better than I do.

SIDEWAYS

by

Owlcroft

"Salivate," said McCormick.

Hardcastle looked up from his magazine. "What?"

"Salivate," McCormick repeated. "Slaver, then slobber."

The judge cocked his head and stared at the younger man with suspicion. "Are you asking me to drool?"

Mark chuckled, shook his head, held up the piece of paper he'd been writing on. "It's an assignment for class. The evolution of words. I have to come up with two more examples like 'salivate' becoming 'slaver' and then 'slobber'. It's etymology, for my English class."

"Oh," said Hardcastle, ruminating. "Like . . . adult and adolescent and . . ."

"Adultery," offered McCormick helpfully.

"No."

"Adulterate."

"No!" The judge rubbed his chin. "Maybe there isn't another one for adult. How about . . . um, _critter_. Yeah, 'critter' comes from 'creature', which comes from the Latin for 'something created'. How's that?" He beamed at Mark in simple pride.

"That_is _good, thanks, Judge." McCormick scribbled quickly, then put the end of the pen in his mouth and stared into space. "So, every _critter_was 'something created'." He gave a little sigh, then shook his head. "Seems like there ought to be some kinda philosophical stuff there, ya know?"

"What it seems like to me is that I just did part of your homework without realizing it." Hardcastle threw down his magazine and lifted himself out of his chair.

"Well, I knew you couldn't resist a challenge," Mark smiled up at him impishly. "Hey, I bet you can't find one for 'pastrami'."

"Pastrami?" The judge folded his arms and looked down sternly. "Why pastrami?"

"It's dinner tonight. What do you say, Hardcase? Twenty bucks if you can do pastrami."

"Huh," Hardcastle pursed his lips and sniffed. "Pastrami, presentrami, futuretrami. Piece of cake."

McCormick threw a mock glare at him. "Oh, no. It's got to hold up in a classroom. Keep trying."

"Hey, you do your own homework. I'm not gonna find you words for a measly twenty bucks. I'm much more expensive than that!" The judge threw back his shoulders, lifted his chin proudly, and marched out into the hall that led to the kitchen.

Mark frowned and thought furiously for a few minutes, then wrote "asinine, ass, jackass", then put the paper in his battered old briefcase, fastened it and followed the judge into the kitchen.

Hardcastle was pulling a package of mushrooms out of the fridge. "Yeesh! Why do we ever get these? We never use 'em and they just sit there and deliquesce and get disgusting."

"Oh-ho, a vocabulary lesson," McCormick said as he pitched the hapless fungoids into the garbage. "Well, I'm gonna surprise you here, Judge. I _know_what disgusting means." He turned back to face the retired jurist handing him a container of something green, furry, and possibly animate. "I even know what this is—it's leftover guacamole."

The judge straightened up, pastrami in hand. "Well, ya oughta know deliquesce. Think about how it sounds—like liquid, right? So, maybe you could use deliquesce, liquid, and . . ."

"Liquor! Of course. Hang on a minute." Mark ran back into the den for his briefcase. Coming back into the kitchen, he muttered, "That's a lot better than the asinine to jackass one."

"What?" demanded Hardcastle.

"Huh? Oh, nothing."

"Listen, you're checking all this, aren't ya? In the dictionary, I mean, 'cause maybe liquid came first and led to all the others." The judge looked at the presentrami in his hand, hefted it gently, then put it back in the fridge. "Let's have something else tonight, okay?"

"Sure. And yes, I'm gonna check it all." McCormick finished writing and looked up. "Tell ya what. You helped with the homework, I'll get dinner. Deal?"

"Depends. What is it?" Hardcastle leaned against the counter lifted an eyebrow skeptically.

Mark set his papers to one side and pondered for a moment. "I'll do spaghetti. Get out the ground beef and the onion, okay?" He moved purposefully to the stove and started pans clattering. "You know, words are funny, sometimes."

The judge handed over the beef and began to set the table. "You mean, funny strange, not funny ha-ha."

"Yeah. We did some Jane Austen in English Lit last year and I remembered how she always spelled 'friend' wrong—f-r-e-i-n-d. Looks kinda like Freud."

Hardcastle paused and thought. "Huh. Guess so."

The ground beef sizzled in the hot pan and Mark reached out to take the onion from the older man. "Get me the tomato sauce, okay?"

"So, you were thinking that friends could be . . . what? Counselors? Therapists of some sort? Here, this kind's already got some kinda herbs or something in it."

"Great!" Swiping at his eyes, McCormick chopped quickly and added onion to the rapidly-browning meat. "Maybe more like listeners, I guess. Somebody who's always willing to hear what you have to say, you know? Listen to your point of view, listen to you complain, things like that."

"I hate to say it, but that actually almost makes sense. Don't burn that stuff now."

"Nah, it's okay. And then I started thinking about the word 'friendship'. You can do all kinds of things with that. People along on the same voyage, or sharing their travels through life." Mark stirred the tomato sauce into the mixture in the frying pan then reached for the salt and pepper. "Get it? On a _ship_."

The judge searched through the cabinets over the counter until he found a package of spaghetti. "I'll get the water going. Yeah, that's a good image. Coupla people shoulder to shoulder, side by side, facing whatever life throws at ya together."

"I was thinking more of lying side by side on deck chairs on the observation deck of the good ship _S.S. Friend_, facing whatever fancy drinks with umbrellas life throws at ya," snickered McCormick.

"That works for me, too," Hardcastle agreed.

Mark gingerly tasted the sauce, considered for moment, then added more salt. "My mom always used to say when she yelled at me it was a way of saying she loved me. I guess that's something you can say in a whole lotta different ways."

"Yeah, I used to say it to my wife with candied ginger." The judge noticed McCormick's interrogative eyebrows and explained, "I hate that stuff, but it was one of her favorites, and it was hard to find sometimes. So, it was a way of telling her I was willing to take the time and find something I didn't want any part of."

McCormick turned up the heat under the pot of water. "Or it could be somebody telling you to put on your sweater 'cause it's cold out."

"Or making sure you eat your vegetables, or telling you right from wrong." Hardcastle took two glasses down and set them on the little table. "Lots of ways to tell people how you feel, with all kinds of different words."

"'S'pose so. Words really are pretty neat, aren't they? Maybe especially the ones that say things sort of sideways." Mark stirred the softening spaghetti and tasted the sauce again. "Hey, why don't you have some of that red wine the Harpers gave you with this? I'll go get it from the cellar."

"That's an idea," the judge nodded. "And after dinner, we'll both go over your homework."

"_After_the movie. It's 'The War Wagon' tonight and we've only seen it a coupla dozen times," smiled McCormick.

Red wine and spaghetti, a movie and homework may not equal deck chairs and umbrella drinks on the observation deck of life, but sometimes the best words are the ones that say things sideways.

finis


End file.
